No Proof of U.S. Election Hacking by Russia: Donald Trump

Although Obama has repeatedly said that he will ensure a smooth transition, his recent decisions are supposed to adversely affect Trump presidency.

By Rakesh Raman

Last week, the U.S. President Barack Obama had announced a number of punitive actions against Russia for its alleged interference in the U.S. presidential election that took place on November 8.

Although Russia had rejected the U.S. allegations, the Obama Administration believes that significant information was hacked by Russia in order to influence the outcome of the election.

The U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has indicated that Russia may not be behind the alleged election hacking, as he does not have any solid proof of it.

Trump is expected to have intelligence briefings on the Russian hacking issue this week and he may shed more light on the subject in the next couple of days.

Although the Obama Administration has taken actions against Russia based on the feedback from U.S. intelligence agencies, people who understand technology know that it is almost impossible to know the identity and location of hackers in a cyber attack (if it happened) of this scale.

It goes without saying that hackers would use untraceable digital identities and labyrinthine proxies if they are attacking an advanced computer system like the U.S. election network.

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Plus, if the Russian government was behind these attacks – as the Obama Administration claims – then it is extremely difficult for U.S. intelligence agencies to identify the hackers because the Russian officials would have taken extra precautions to stay behind the curtain.

Then how did Obama conclude that hacking was done by Russia? In most such cases the intelligence agencies either provide information that the political bosses want to see or their findings are so convoluted that they can be interpreted in multiple ways.

The problem with such findings is that they cannot be vetted or cross-checked by an independent agency. People will have no other option but to trust the official version. It has happened before also in the U.S.

A year ago, for example, Sony film ‘The Interview‘ was allegedly hacked. When FBI concluded that North Korea was behind the cyber attacks on Sony systems, the allegations of the apex investigation department were largely unfounded.

Subsequent reports revealed that there were layers on layers in the hack case which FBI failed to investigate thoroughly and pronounced its findings in haste.

Similarly, it is probable that Obama has trusted the half-baked information provided to him by the local agencies and decided to act against Russia because at this juncture it suits him politically.

Obama believes that Trump is very close to Russian president Vladimir Putin, while America has hostile relations with Russia. So, Obama wants to make things difficult for his rival Trump when the latter becomes the president on January 20.

Although Obama has repeatedly said that he will ensure a smooth transition, his recent decisions are supposed to adversely affect Trump presidency. Trump also has indicated that the transition is not smooth.

In another decision related to Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory, Obama refused to follow Trump’s advice. Before the Security Council meeting on the issue, Trump had stated that the resolution being considered at the United Nations Security Council regarding Israel should be vetoed.

But instead of vetoing the resolution, the Obama Administration abstained from it which cleared the way to the adoption of resolution that condemned Israeli settlements.

These facts suggest that Obama’s actions against Russia may not be purely based on professional judgments. Rather, in all probability, his decisions are influenced by unfair political factors.

And all this confusion is being created in such a way that common Americans will never know the truth about Russian hacking, at least. Believe me.

By Rakesh Raman, who is a government award-winning journalist and runs free school for deserving children under his NGO – RMN Foundation.

Photo courtesy: Trump / Twitter